Breaking the curve with candels: a Bayesian approach to reveal the non-universality of the dust-attenuation law at high redshift

Dust attenuation affects nearly all observational aspects of galaxy evolution, yet very little is known about the form of the dust-attenuation law in the distant universe. Here, we model the spectral energy distributions of galaxies at z ~ 1.5–3 from CANDELS with rest-frame UV to near-IR imaging under different assumptions about the dust law, and compare the amount of inferred attenuated light with the observed infrared (IR) luminosities. Some individual galaxies show strong Bayesian evidence in preference of one dust law over another, and this preference agrees with their observed location on the plane of infrared excess (IRX, L_TIR/L_UV) and UV slope (β). We generalize the shape of the dust law with an empirical model, A_ λ,σ =E(B-V)k_ λ (λ / λ v)^ σ where k_λ is the dust law of Calzetti et al., and show that there exists a correlation between the color excess E(B-V) and tilt δ with δ =(0.62±0.05)log(E(B-V))+(0.26±0.02). Galaxies with high color excess have a shallower, starburst-like law, and those with low color excess have a steeper, SMC-like law. Surprisingly, the galaxies in our sample show no correlation between the shape of the dust law and stellar mass, star formation rate, or β. The change in the dust law with color excess is consistent with a model where attenuation is caused by scattering, a mixed star–dust geometry, and/or trends with stellar population age, metallicity, and dust grain size. This rest-frame UV-to-near-IR method shows potential to constrain the dust law at even higher redshifts (z>3).

Predicamento de seguridad yemení

Con el inicio del periodo Post-Guerra Fría el Sistema Internacional comienza a experimentar un incremento en el fortalecimiento de su componente social; la Sociedad de Estados alcanza un mayor nivel de homogenización, el estado, unidad predominante de esta, comienzan atravesar una serie de transformaciones que obedecerán a una serie de cambios y continuidades respecto al periodo anterior. Desde la perspectiva del Realismo Subalterno de las Relaciones Internacionales se destacan el proceso de construcción de estado e inserción al sistema como las variables que determinan el sentimiento de inseguridad experimentado por las elites estatales del Tercer Mundo; procesos que en el contexto de un nuevo y turbulento periodo en el sistema, tomara algunas características particulares que darán un sentido especifico al sentimiento de inseguridad y las acciones a través de las cuales las elites buscan disminuirlo. La dimensión externa del sentimiento de inseguridad, el nuevo papel que toma la resistencia popular como factor determinante del sentimiento de inseguridad y de la cooperación, así como del conflicto, entre los miembros de la Sociedad Internacional, la inserción como promotor de estrategias de construcción de Estado, son alguno de los temas puntuales, que desde la perspectiva subalterna, parecen salir a flote tras el análisis del sistema en lo que se ha considerado como el periodo Post-Guerra Fría. En este sentido Yemen, se muestra como un caso adecuado no solo para poner a prueba las postulados de la teoría subalterna, veinte años después de su obra más prominente (The third world security Predicament), escrita por M. Ayoob, sino como un caso pertinente que permite acercarse más a la comprensión del papel del Tercer Mundo al interior de la Sociedad Internacional de Estados.

Supporting law students’ skills development online – a strategy to improve skills and reduce student stress?

Law students internationally suffer from a high level of psychological distress compared with the general and student populations, and anecdotal evidence suggests that students developing skills without adequate support experience significant stress and anxiety. This article considers an initiative at one Australian law school to develop a degree-wide structured online skills development programme as a means to both improve student skills acquisition and reduce student stress. The project implements, through the use of learning technology, the principles proposed by McKinney for making small changes to law school teaching, informed by self-efficacy theory, which can have powerful results.

Digital Forensics AI: on Practicality, Optimality, and Interpretability of Digital Evidence Mining Techniques

Digital forensics as a field has progressed alongside technological advancements over the years, just as digital devices have gotten more robust and sophisticated. However, criminals and attackers have devised means for exploiting the vulnerabilities or sophistication of these devices to carry out malicious activities in unprecedented ways. Their belief is that electronic crimes can be committed without identities being revealed or trails being established. Several applications of artificial intelligence (AI) have demonstrated interesting and promising solutions to seemingly intractable societal challenges. This thesis aims to advance the concept of applying AI techniques in digital forensic investigation. Our approach involves experimenting with a complex case scenario in which suspects corresponded by e-mail and deleted, suspiciously, certain communications, presumably to conceal evidence. The purpose is to demonstrate the efficacy of Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) in learning and detecting communication patterns over time, and then predicting the possibility of missing communication(s) along with potential topics of discussion. To do this, we developed a novel approach and included other existing models. The accuracy of our results is evaluated, and their performance on previously unseen data is measured. Second, we proposed conceptualizing the term “Digital Forensics AI” (DFAI) to formalize the application of AI in digital forensics. The objective is to highlight the instruments that facilitate the best evidential outcomes and presentation mechanisms that are adaptable to the probabilistic output of AI models. Finally, we enhanced our notion in support of the application of AI in digital forensics by recommending methodologies and approaches for bridging trust gaps through the development of interpretable models that facilitate the admissibility of digital evidence in legal proceedings.

An analysis of the regulatory chill hypothesis: environmental protection in international investment law

The goal of this thesis has been to find out whether ISDS and international investment law exert a chilling effect on more stringent environmental standards at the domestic level. Due to the lack of consistent empirical and statistical evidence uncovered during the analysis, this thesis largely dismisses the regulatory chill hypothesis. However, two exceptions are identified: first, there is evidence of the efforts made by domestic industrial groups and trade unions to prevent the implementation of stricter environmental standards; second, it has become apparent that unfounded beliefs, e.g. about ISDS, held by lawmakers and regulators can play an important role in chilling stricter environmental standards. For these reasons, a new and narrower definition of the regulatory chill phenomenon has been proposed, one that only encompasses those instances in which lawmakers, governments and government agencies refrain from adopting the laws and regulations that they deem the most appropriate because they believe that doing so would lead to adverse consequences at the international trade and investment level, despite a lack of consistent and robust evidence supporting their concerns. The second part of this thesis focusses on what could be done in international economic law to promote environmentally friendly FDI, while preventing the few instances in which regulatory chill may take place due to ill-founded beliefs held by lawmakers and regulators. Following an analysis that highlights the paramount role played by public participation and responsive institutions to achieve an appropriate level of environmental protection, this study ends with a proposal that recommends the adoption of a clause within IIAs that makes pre-investment environmental screening mandatory and free from ISDS oversight.

Can We Predict The Clinical Outcomes Of Genitourinary Trauma Patients And Offer Them An Evidence-based Support? The Case For Telemedicine Network.

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Molecular And Morphological Evidence Reveals A New Species In The Phyllomedusa Hypochondrialis Group (hylidae, Phyllomedusinae) From The Atlantic Forest Of The Highlands Of Southern Brazil.

The taxonomic status of a disjunctive population of Phyllomedusa from southern Brazil was diagnosed using molecular, chromosomal, and morphological approaches, which resulted in the recognition of a new species of the P. hypochondrialis group. Here, we describe P. rustica sp. n. from the Atlantic Forest biome, found in natural highland grassland formations on a plateau in the south of Brazil. Phylogenetic inferences placed P. rustica sp. n. in a subclade that includes P. rhodei + all the highland species of the clade. Chromosomal morphology is conservative, supporting the inference of homologies among the karyotypes of the species of this genus. Phyllomedusa rustica is apparently restricted to its type-locality, and we discuss the potential impact on the strategies applied to the conservation of the natural grassland formations found within the Brazilian Atlantic Forest biome in southern Brazil. We suggest that conservation strategies should be modified to guarantee the preservation of this species.

Triboelectricity In Insulating Polymers: Evidence For A Mechanochemical Mechanism.

Transfer of reaction products formed on the surfaces of two mutually rubbed dielectric solids makes an important if not dominating contribution to triboelectricity. New evidence in support of this statement is presented in this report, based on analytical electron microscopy coupled to electrostatic potential mapping techniques. Mechanical action on contacting surface asperities transforms them into hot-spots for free-radical formation, followed by electron transfer producing cationic and anionic polymer fragments, according to their electronegativity. Polymer ions accumulate creating domains with excess charge because they are formed at fracture surfaces of pulled-out asperities. Another factor for charge segregation is the low polymer mixing entropy, following Flory and Huggins. The formation of fractal charge patterns that was previously described is thus the result of polymer fragment fractal scatter on both contacting surfaces. The present results contribute to the explanation of the centuries-old difficulties for understanding the triboelectric series and triboelectricity in general, as well as the dissipative nature of friction, and they may lead to better control of friction and its consequences.

Rhinosinusitis: Evidence And Experience. A Summary.

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Visual demonstration of the ionic strength effect in the classroom: the Debye-Hückel limiting law

The effects of ionic strength on ions in aqueous solutions are quite relevant, especially for biochemical systems, in which proteins and amino acids are involved. The teaching of this topic and more specifically, the Debye-Hückel limiting law, is central in chemistry undergraduate courses. In this work, we present a description of an experimental procedure based on the color change of aqueous solutions of bromocresol green (BCG), driven by addition of electrolyte. The contribution of charge product (z+|z-|) to the Debye-Hückel limiting law is demonstrated when the effects of NaCl and Na2SO4 on the color of BCG solutions are compared.

Reviewed evidence about the safety of the daily use of alcohol-based mouthrinses

Current scientific knowledge provides clear evidence that alcohol-based mouthwashes can be beneficial in a daily oral health routine, including dental hygiene and plaque control. Several issues are worth discussing, in spite of the wealth of supporting evidence. Despite some undesirable effects to some people, like burning sensation, and some contraindications, like the use by infants, alcohol addicts and patients with mucosal injuries, there is no reason to avoid the use of alcohol-containing mouthwashes as long as they are used following proper guidance by dental professionals and the manufacturers' instructions. The alleged correlation between oral cancer and alcohol-based mouthrinses presents so little, weak, inconsistent and even contradictory evidence in the literature that any kind of risk warning to patients would be uncalled for. Antimicrobial mouthrinses are safe and effective in reducing plaque and gingivitis, and should be part of a comprehensive oral health care regimen that includes brushing, flossing and rinsing to prevent or minimize periodontal disease.

Allelopathic evidence in Brachiaria decumbens and its potential to invade the Brazilian Cerrados

The aim of this study was to look for evidence of allelochemicals in B. decumbens, in parts of the plant from where they could easily be released to the environment. The germination inhibition of Phalaris canariensis, Lactuca sativa (standard species) and Melinis minutiflora, another invasive African grass, was tested using B. decumbens germinating seeds and aqueous leachates of the roots, green and senescent leaves, at 5, 10 and 20% w/v. Both the germinating seeds and the aqueous leachates of B. decumbens reduced the germination of the species tested; the effectiveness of the aqueous leachates increased according to concentration. Apparently, the competitive advantage of B. decumbens in the cerrados could be amplified via allelopathy.

Population genetic structuring in pacu (Piaractus mesopotamicus) across the Paraná-Paraguay basin: evidence from microsatellites

The Paraná-Paraguay basin encompasses central western Brazil, northeastern Paraguay, eastern Bolivia and northern Argentina. The Pantanal is a flooded plain with marked dry and rainy seasons that, due to its soil characteristics and low declivity, has a great water holding capacity supporting abundant fish fauna. Piaractus mesopotamicus, or pacu, endemic of the Paraná-Paraguay basin, is a migratory species economically important in fisheries and ecologically as a potential seed disperser. In this paper we employ eight microsatellite loci to assess the population structure of 120 pacu sampled inside and outside the Pantanal of Mato Grosso. Our main objective was to test the null hypothesis of panmixia and to verify if there was a different structuring pattern between the Pantanal were there were no physical barriers to fish movement and the heavily impounded Paraná and Paranapanema rivers. All loci had moderate to high levels of polymorphism, the number of alleles varied from three to 18. The average observed heterozygosity varied from 0.068 to 0.911. After the Bonferroni correction three loci remained significant for deviations from Hardy-Weinberg, and for those the frequency of null alleles was estimated. F ST and R ST pairwise comparisons detected low divergence among sampling sites, and differentiation was significant only between Paranapanema and Cuiabá and Paranapanema and Taquari. No correlation between genetic distance and the natural logarithm of the geographic distance was detected. Results indicate that for conservation purposes and for restoration programs small genetic differences detected in the Cuiabá and Paranapanema rivers should be taken in consideration.

Evidence for divided automatic attention

A long-standing debate in the literature is whether attention can form two or more independent spatial foci in addition to the well-known unique spatial focus. There is evidence that voluntary visual attention divides in space. The possibility that this also occurs for automatic visual attention was investigated here. Thirty-six female volunteers were tested. In each trial, a prime stimulus was presented in the left or right visual hemifield. This stimulus was characterized by the blinking of a superior, middle or inferior ring, the blinking of all these rings, or the blinking of the superior and inferior rings. A target stimulus to which the volunteer should respond with the same side hand or a target stimulus to which she should not respond was presented 100 ms later in a primed location, a location between two primed locations or a location in the contralateral hemifield. Reaction time to the positive target stimulus in a primed location was consistently shorter than reaction time in the horizontally corresponding contralateral location. This attentional effect was significantly smaller or absent when the positive target stimulus appeared in the middle location after the double prime stimulus. These results suggest that automatic visual attention can focus on two separate locations simultaneously, to some extent sparing the region in between.

Weight of evidence

Evidence-based Medicine (EBM) has become a major source of medical knowledge. It handles complexities of virtually every method or technique used in research. The knowledge on how the EBM researcher retrieves information, judges for relevance and analyzes derived data is invaluable for the skillful reader of medical scientific reports.